A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

The Thirty Years’ War (I61H-164H) 145

own brother led a second plot
against Richelieu from 1641 to
1642, backed by the king of
Spain.
After decades of religious
wars, the assassination of

Henry IV, and a fragile, temper­
amental young monarch around
whom plots swirled, the monar­
chy of France had nonetheless
been greatly strengthened, build­
ing upon the accomplishments
of his predecessor. Louis XII Is
sometimes decisive and brutal

actions enhanced the reputa­
tion of the king who was
known to many of his subjects
as “The Just,’* w'hether fitting

or not. A hypochondriac whose philippc de champagne s portrait of the
health was even worse than he sad-eyed Louis XIII.
feared, Louis XIII died of
tuberculosis in 1643 at the age
of fortv-tw'o. But the man-child monarch had, with Richelieu, laid the
foundations for absolute monarchical rule in France.

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648)

In Central Europe, religious divisions and intolerance led to the Thirty
Years’ War, a brutal conflict during w hich the largely mercenary armies of
Catholic and Protestant states laid waste to the German states. Dynastic
rivalries were never far from the stage, bringing the continental Great
Powers into the fray. When the w ar finally ended, the Treaty of Westphalia
(1648) established a territorial and religious settlement that lasted until
the French Revolution.

Factionalism in the Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire w'as a loose confederation of approximately 1,000

German autonomous or semi-autonomous states. These states ranged in size

from powerful Habsburg Austria to Hamburg, Lubeck, and other free cities

in the north, and even smaller territories no more than a few' square kilome­

ters in size run by bishops. It would have been almost impossible for a trav­

eler to determine where one state stopped and another began had it not

been for the frequent toll stations, w'hich provided revenue for each. The